


A Safe Place to Land

by Ilmare_Ilse



Series: A Safe Place to Land [1]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Coda, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s10e14 I Ho'olulu Ho'ohulei 'Ia E Ka Makani, Post-Episode: s10e15 He Waha Kou O Ka He'e (Yours is the Mouth of an Octopus), Season/Series 10 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:00:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27707294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilmare_Ilse/pseuds/Ilmare_Ilse
Summary: In the days after the car accident, Danny finds himself connecting more and more with Marie, Joanna's sister.It's the start of a friendship that will help heal them both.First of a series of oneshots.
Relationships: Danny "Danno" Williams & Marie Lapietro
Series: A Safe Place to Land [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2026454
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	A Safe Place to Land

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is the first of a series of oneshots exploring a possible friendship between Danny and Joanna's sister, Marie. 
> 
> This is set after episode 10x15, after Marie and Danny first met.
> 
> Take it as a way to have Danny a little less alone during and after the 10th season.

Danny had been back to work for a few days now. He had tried to go back right away after the accident, but Tani had threatened to lock him out of his office, and he believed her, so he took the time to let his ribs heal a little and the bruises on his face fade.

On top of that, Danny was having some trouble getting Steve off his back. He kept giving Danny worried looks and making lame attempts to get him to talk about things.

Danny for his part had not felt like talking. He hadn’t talked much right after the accident, when Steve forced him to get checked out in the hospital and drove him back to his place, and he hadn’t talked after. There was no use talking about things that he could do nothing about, in any case.

He was just finishing the paperwork for their latest case when he received a call from an unknown number.

“Detective Williams.”

_“Hello? Detective Williams, I- this is Marie LaPietro. Joanna’s sister?”_

Danny sucked a sharp breath but couldn’t manage to say anything for a minute. He was confused by her call, but then he remembered giving Marie his card, offering to help if she needed anything.

_“Detective Williams?”_ Apparently, he had taken longer than he realized to reply.

Danny cleared his throat, “yes, Marie, how can I help you?”

_“I’m terribly sorry to bother you, but I can’t find the number for the coroner’s office, and I found yours,”_ she started.

“No, it’s no bother at all, what can I do for you?” Danny replied, psyching himself for the conversation. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but he really wanted to be useful to Joanna’s family.

He could hear Marie sighing on the other side of the line. _“Listen, it’s nothing urgent, but my mom wanted me to call,”_ she explained, sounding uncomfortable. _“It’s just that we got the last of Joanna’s things this week, and when my mom went through them over the weekend, she couldn’t find a necklace that she gave to Jo. I told her that she probably didn’t take it with her to Hawaii, but my mom insists that she did, and she wanted me to call and see if someone could check if it was left there, in case she had it- if she had it on her that day,”_ she explained in a rush.

Danny cleared his throat, trying to mask his discomfort. “Listen, let me find a pen,” he said, fumbling with the papers on his desk until he found a pen. “Okay, why don’t you describe the necklace, and I can ask around, see if it was left behind somewhere,” he suggested.

_“Oh, no!”_ Marie argued. _“I never meant to bother you at all! I just wanted to ask for the number for the coroner’s office,”_ she explained.

“No, it’s no problem, really,” Danny reassured. “I only need a description of the necklace and I can ask around. It’ll take me a few minutes.”

_“Alright, if you’re sure,”_ Marie replied, sounding unsure _. “It’s a gold chain with a small diamond pendant. Actually, I have a picture of it I could send you,”_ she offered.

Danny’s mind blanked. The last thing he wanted was a photo of Joanna to remind him of what he could have had and lost, but he couldn’t come up with a way to refuse the photo.

Luckily for him, Marie saved him the trouble. _“It’s not a photo of Joanna. My mom for some reason takes photos of all her good jewelry, so she took a pic of this necklace before she gave it to Jo. She’s strange like that.”_ She explained.

Danny took a relieved breath. “Oh, that’s- that’s good,” he said, trying to compose himself. “Send me the photo, I will ask around.”

_“Thank you so much, detective. It means a lot to my mom.”_

“It’s no problem at all, I’ll let you know if I find out anything,” Danny reassured before finishing the call. He saved her contact in case he needed to get back to her.

* * *

A couple of days later Danny sent a text to Marie: “Hello Marie. This is Dt. Williams. The hospital found your sister’s necklace. They’re going to contact you tomorrow to get an address to send it to you.”

He checked the text five times to make sure that he hadn’t made a stupid typo and finally sent it, hoping to be done with it and not have to think about Joanna so much anymore.

He got a _“Thank you so much, detective!”_ from Marie and breathed a relieved sigh. He had tried to get Joanna out of his head without much success. Valentine’s day was fast approaching and the idea of romance and love only made him think about what he could have had, but never really got to enjoy.

* * *

He didn’t think about Marie, and tried not to think about Joanna, until a few days later. He was just getting ready for another sleepless night when a notification for a new message appeared on his phone. He was surprised to find it came from Marie LaPietro, but it was just the thing he needed to get his crappy day into the horrible category.

He thought about leaving the message for the next morning, but he figured it was better to deal with whatever was going on now than have to worry about it all night long and still have to deal with it in the morning.

He was surprised to find it was a very uninformative text from Marie: _“I hate this, it sucks.”_

He looked at the message for a couple of minutes and somehow he realized that it packed much more than he had first noticed. “It really does.” He found himself replying.

He wasn’t expecting a reply, but about 10 minutes later he got a: _“Yeah. I really miss her.”_

Danny wasn’t sure what to do with that so he left it at that, figuring he could send some random platitude in the morning. He wasn’t expecting the next message he got: _“You miss her too, don’t you?”_

His denial was quick: “I didn’t really know her.”

_“Doesn’t matter. I think she liked you, you were special.”_ Marie’s reply was like a punch in the gut.

“She was way more special than I’ll ever be.” He typed, trying to deflect.

_“So you cared about her. You miss her too.”_ One of the things Danny had loved about Joanna was how easily she read him, and now he could see that it ran in the family. He was not loving it so much right then.

“Yes, I do.” He was forced to admit.

_“I’m sorry.”_ Marie wrote. Danny read the message a couple of times. He couldn’t understand what she was sorry about, and he had never felt so undeserving of sympathy.

He didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t reply. He didn’t know what he was thinking when he gave Marie his number.

Apparently his silence was answer enough.

_“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”_ She texted.

Now Danny felt like an asshole. “No, don’t worry about it. I know it’s a difficult time. You can message me if you need to talk.” He thought about deleting the message after he sent it, but he got a reply before he could do anything.

_“Thank you, detective. Good night.”_

Danny left it at that, by then resigned to another night of insomnia.

* * *

A couple of nights later, Danny was wondering why he bothered to even change into pajamas when he got a notification for a text message. It was from Marie again.

Looking at the time, he could see that he was not the only one having trouble sleeping.

He opened the message and regretted it immediately. _“They want me to clear out her apartment.”_ It read. Danny felt like all the air had left the room for a second.

He tried to come up with something to say, something comforting, but he found himself typing. “I thought she had moved here,” was his reply, which he hated as soon as he hit send.

_“She wasn’t sure if it was going to work out, so she kept her apartment here,”_ Marie replied a minute later.

He thought about Bridget and Stella having to clear out Matt’s place, but that was when he had just left, they thought he’d come back eventually. It still must have been an awful situation. 

“Is there anyone who could help you? A friend? Your partner?” He asked. “It’s not something easy to do alone,” he clarified, not wanting to look like he was prying.

_“There’s some friends who could help, but I don’t want to ask them,”_ she replied.

“I’m sorry,” was the only thing Danny could come up with.

He wasn’t surprised when a couple of minutes passed and he didn’t get any reply. He was psyching himself to put the phone away and try to sleep when a new message appeared. _“Can I call you?”_ quickly followed by another one. _“Please?”_

Danny groaned, wanting to give her some excuse. In the end, he just typed his reply, trying not to think on all the ways in which things could turn out horribly. “Yes, sure.”

He thought about moving to the Lanai, hoping that Steve wouldn’t eavesdrop on his conversation, but he didn’t get the chance. It was less than a minute later that his phone started ringing. Danny sat up a little more in his bed and pressed the green button. “Hello?”

_“I’m sorry, I can’t do it. Please, I can’t!”_ Danny could barely understand her in between her hitched breaths.

“Hey, no Marie. It’s alright, you need to slow down a bit,” he tried in a soothing tone, hoping to get her to calm down a bit.

_“No, it’s not alright! I really can’t do it. I feel like I’m going to die, I really can’t do it, please!”_ she cried.

Danny really didn’t like how Marie sounded, so he tried to come up with some way to help from halfway across the world. “Marie, sweetheart. Are you at your place? Is there anyone else there?” He asked kindly.

_“No, I’m- I live alone,”_ she said, in a voice full of tears.

Danny nodded. “Ok, that’s fine. Listen, I’m going to change the call to video, okay? I need you to answer the call, can you do that?”

_“Yeah, okay,”_ she replied.

Danny pressed the video call button and was relieved when his screen showed Marie’s tear stained face. “Hey, there you are,” he said with a smile. “Listen, I need you to match your breathing to mine, ok? We have to slow it down a bit, sounds good?”

Marie nodded, and followed as Danny coached her through a breathing exercise. After a couple of minutes, he had helped her to calm down a bit.

“There you go, that’s much better,” he encouraged her.

Marie shook her head. _“I can’t do it. I don’t want to go to her place,”_ she sobbed.

“I get it, it’s not an easy thing to do,” he reassured her. “How about leaving it for some other time? Maybe wait a few days, maybe a month?” he asked kindly.

_“No, we can’t afford to pay her rent. We have to empty the apartment by the end of the week,”_ Marie replied, sounding defeated.

Danny nodded in understanding. “Ok, do you have the number any of Joanna’s friends?”

Marie seemed confused but nodded.

“Do you think it would be alright to give them a call? Ask them to do it for you?” Danny asked.

Her face crumpled. _“But it’s her place, her things, we should be the ones to sort through them.”_

Danny nodded in agreement. “They could put everything in boxes, and then you can sort through them when you feel ready to do it,” he suggested.

Marie grew silent, thinking about Danny’s idea, but not looking too convinced.

“If you don’t want to talk to them, you could send me their numbers. I could give them a call,” Danny offered.

Marie smiled at his offer. _“Thank you,”_ she said tearfully. She considered his offer for a minute. _“I’m going to call a couple of Jo’s friends tomorrow, and a couple of my friends too, and,”_ she drew a shaky breath, _“I’ll see if I can go with them, but if not, then I’ll ask them to do it,”_ she said with a nod.

Danny smiled. “That’s a great idea. You don’t have to rush things. Just do what makes you comfortable,” he encouraged her.

_“Thank you Danny,”_ Marie said sincerely.

“Any time,” Danny replied with a smile.

They kept talking for a good couple of hours after that, about the most random things. Eventually Marie fell asleep, and Danny was surprised that he was having trouble to keep his eyes open. He finished the call and settled to sleep. He had the best night of sleep he had since the accident.

* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. I'd love to see what you think about this! :D


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